26,873 research outputs found
The Secular Bar-Mode Instability in Rapidly Rotating Stars Revisited
Uniformly rotating, homogeneous, incompressible Maclaurin spheroids that spin
sufficiently rapidly are secularly unstable to nonaxisymmetric, bar-mode
perturbations when viscosity is present. The intuitive explanation is that
energy dissipation by viscosity can drive an unstable spheroid to a stable,
triaxial configuration of lower energy - a Jacobi ellipsoid. But what about
rapidly rotating compressible stars? Unlike incompressible stars, which contain
no internal energy and therefore immediately liberate all the energy dissipated
by viscosity, compressible stars have internal energy and can retain the
dissipated energy as internal heat. Now compressible stars that rotate
sufficiently rapidly and also manage to liberate this dissipated energy very
quickly are known to be unstable to bar-mode perturbations, like their
incompressible counterparts. But what is the situation for rapidly rotating
compressible stars that have very long cooling timescales, so that all the
energy dissipated by viscosity is retained as heat, whereby the total energy of
the star remains constant on a secular (viscous) evolution timescale? Are such
stars also unstable to the nonlinear growth of bar modes, or is the viscous
heating sufficient to cause them to expand, drive down the ratio of rotational
kinetic to gravitational potential energy T/|W| ~ 1/R, where R is the
equatorial radius, and turn off the instability before it gets underway? If the
instability still arises in such stars, at what rotation rate do they become
unstable, and to what final state do they evolve? We provide answers to these
questions in the context of the compressible ellipsoid model for rotating
stars. The results should serve as useful guides for numerical simulations in
3+1 dimensions for rotating stars containing viscosity.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ 613, 1213-1220, 200
Recent developments in Vorton Theory
This article provides a concise overview of recent theoretical results
concerning the theory of vortons, which are defined to be (centrifugally
supported) equilibrium configurations of (current carrying) cosmic string
loops. Following a presentation of the results of work on the dynamical
evolution of small circular string loops, whose minimum energy states are the
simplest examples of vortons, recent order of magnitude estimates of the
cosmological density of vortons produced in various kinds of theoretical
scenario are briefly summarised.Comment: 6 pages Latex. Contribution to 1996 Cosmology Meeting, Peyresq,
Franc
Chaotic string-capture by black hole
We consider a macroscopic charge-current carrying (cosmic) string in the
background of a Schwarzschild black hole. The string is taken to be circular
and is allowed to oscillate and to propagate in the direction perpendicular to
its plane (that is parallel to the equatorial plane of the black hole).
Nurmerical investigations indicate that the system is non-integrable, but the
interaction with the gravitational field of the black hole anyway gives rise to
various qualitatively simple processes like "adiabatic capture" and "string
transmutation".Comment: 13 pages Latex + 3 figures (not included), Nordita 93/55
Renormalisation of gravitational self interaction for wiggly strings
It is shown that for any elastic string model with energy density and
tension , the divergent contribution from gravitational self interaction can
be allowed for by an action renormalisation proportional to . This
formula is applied to the important special case of a bare model of the
transonic type (characterised by a constant value of the product ) that
represents the macroscopically averaged effect of shortwavelength wiggles on an
underlying microscopic model of the Nambu-Goto type (characterised by ).Comment: 11 pages, Latex; original 8 page version extended to include
estimates of relevant orders of magnitude. To be published in Physical
Review,
Poly-essential and general Hyperelastic World (brane) models
This article provides a unified treatment of an extensive category of
non-linear classical field models whereby the universe is represented (perhaps
as a brane in a higher dimensional background) in terms of a structure of a
mathematically convenient type describable as hyperelastic, for which a
complete set of equations of motion is provided just by the energy-momentum
conservation law. Particular cases include those of a perfect fluid in
quintessential backgrounds of various kinds, as well as models of the elastic
solid kind that has been proposed to account for cosmic acceleration. It is
shown how an appropriately generalised Hadamard operator can be used to
construct a symplectic structure that controles the evolution of small
perturbations, and that provides a characteristic equation governing the
propagation of weak discontinuities of diverse (extrinsic and extrinsic) kinds.
The special case of a poly-essential model - the k-essential analogue of an
ordinary polytropic fluid - is examined and shown to be well behaved (like the
fluid) only if the pressure to density ratio is positive.Comment: 16 pages Latex, Contrib. to 10th Peyresq Pysics Meeting, June 2005:
Micro and Macro Structures of Spacetim
Dynamics of cosmic strings and springs; a covariant formulation
A general family of charge-current carrying cosmic string models is
investigated. In the special case of circular configurations in arbitrary
axially symmetric gravitational and electromagnetic backgrounds the dynamics is
determined by simple point particle Hamiltonians. A certain "duality"
transformation relates our results to previous ones, obtained by Carter et.
al., for an infinitely long open stationary string in an arbitrary stationary
background.Comment: 11 pages, Latex, Nordita preprint 93/28
Dynamical Stability of Witten Rings
The dynamical stability of cosmic rings, or vortons, is investigated for the
particular equation of state given by the Witten bosonic model. It is found
that there exists a finite range of the state parameter for which the vorton
states are actually stable against dynamical perturbations. Inclusion of the
electromagnetic self action into the equation of state slightly shrinks the
stability region but otherwise yields no qualitative difference. If the Witten
bosonic model represents a good approximation for more realistic string models,
then the cosmological vorton excess problem can only be solved by assuming
either that strings are formed at low energy scales or that some quantum
instability may develop at a sufficient rate.Comment: 11 pages, LaTeX-ReVTeX (v.3), 2 figures available upon request, DAMTP
R-94/1
Capabilities and limitations of existing MST radars: Poker Flat
Designed as a prototype system to continuously monitor the atmosphere up to approximately 100 km, the Poker Flat MST radar began operating in 1979 at a relatively low sensitivity. In almost continuous operation since then, the system is steadily increasing in sensitivity to its ultimate design characteristics. Current and final parameters are listed. The advantages of its modular design, which uses 64 transmitting modules distributed through the 200 mx 200 m antenna array include: easy maintenance, beam switching using very low power switching, air cooled transmitting tubes, lower feedline costs, and no moving parts. Continuous, uninterrupted operation ( 4 years) and less man-made interference because of the remote location) are other assets. Most disadvantages are related to its not-yet-finished status, climate, moose excursions, and operating expenses
The NOAA TOGA antenna array
The Aeronomy Laboratory recently installed a 100 x 100 meter array antenna with limited beam steering on Christmas Island as a part of the TOGA (Tropical Ocean and Global Atmosphere) program. The array and the associated beam steering and indicating hardware are described
Bogomol'nyi Limit For Magnetic Vortices In Rotating Superconductor
This work is the sequel of a previous investigation of stationary and
cylindrically symmetric vortex configurations for simple models representing an
incompressible non-relativistic superconductor in a rigidly rotating
background. In the present paper, we carry out our analysis with a generalized
Ginzburg-Landau description of the superconductor, which provides a
prescription for the radial profile of the normal density within the vortex.
Within this framework, it is shown that the Bogomol'nyi limit condition marking
the boundary between type I and type II behavior is unaffected by the rotation
of the background.Comment: 7 pages, uses RevTeX, submitted to Phys.Rev.
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